Talk:Wiki Content/@comment-24583020-20140328001859/@comment-24583020-20140329182957
So, the simple answer about strategy and optimization is that; “It depends.” I know that isn’t helpful which is why we’ve been thinking about strategies and presenting different options and opinions based on all the different ways that you can play this game. Everyone has probably noticed that there isn’t any defined “winning” to the game. I think that is part of what makes it appealing to so many different people. You make up your on definition of success rather than having to meet the definition that the game designer had in mind. So much for philosophy. The above is true from a practical standpoint as well. What are the short and long term goals of each person; how often do they get into the game to gather coins; what span of hours are you gathering in a day; how many diamonds are they getting; do they even care about leveling up the Muppets or getting to new game levels, other than to get access to the other stages? All these play into the answers to strategy questions. I didn’t start out with the multiples that I currently have. I pretty much went down the line digitizing Muppets to get one of each. However, because I didn’t get every 3 dresser on the first try, as I got other 2 dressers in the process, I placed them and fed them up to about level 8-12 to earn coins while I decided my strategy for that stage. That didn’t cost too much food but gave me a reasonable earning. If I found that I wanted different Muppets, I didn’t feel to bad about dismissing them and placing a different Muppet. I think that CV pointed out quite well that if the “all to 15” achievement isn’t something you have to get, and if coins for food are limited, the payback for getting everyone to 15 may not be a good use of coins. I’ve always said that it is better to take a bunch of Muppets from level 10 to 11 rather than one from 14-15. If each one increases the per minute by 10 coins and you can do 10 Muppets from level 10 to 11, you might get another 100 coins per minute where doing one Muppet from 14 to 15 might only get you 10 coins per minute. Most of us need all the diamonds that we can get just to get all our dressing rooms and to upgrade Digitizers so every achievement or goal that gives us diamonds is something that we have to go after. For those looking to maximize coin earning, it still depends on how often you can get into the game to collect coins. If you want to get the most out of your one dressing room Muppets, you need to collect about every 15-20 minutes, which is probably not feasible for most. There is no one right answer. Let me use my Big House stage for demonstration. I have one of all the Muppets except that I did dismiss Swedish Chef and Chickens after I got the All to 15 accomplishment. I have 2 Big Mo, 2 Rats and 12 Kizzy. I am typically in and out of the game between 6 AM and 10 PM each day and I gather coins about every 1.5 hours. Using that process, for the Big House alone, I can gather 4,615,560 coins. Looking at other gathering intervals, if I collect every: 15 minutes – I could gather 4,937,160 coins per day. 1.5 hours – I could gather 4,615,560 coins. 12 hours – I could gather 1,098,000 coins. You can see that the interval is important although with the group of Muppets that I have, collecting more often than once every hour and a half doesn’t gain much. Just as an exercise, lets say that I could (and was willing to) collect every 15 minutes between 6 AM and 10 PM. Then my strategy would probably be to put all 1 dressing room Muppets on the stage since they are typically high earners per minute, especially since I could put 60 of them on the stage (if I could find room). For the Big House stage, let’s pick Rowlf who earns 170 per minute. If I put 60 of him on the stage and if I collect every: 15 minutes – I could gather 10, 011,600 coins per day. 1.5 hours – I could gather 2,562,000 coins per day. 12 hours – I could gather 439,200 coins per day. Obviously, if you can collect very often, the higher the earning per minute and the more you can put on the stage (fewer dressing rooms per Muppet), you could potentially make a lot of coins! But if you are only getting in twice a day, this is a very bad way to go. And even for me, collecting every 1.5 hours, it would mean cutting my earning in half. For twice a day, you’ll want to get Muppets with high maximums. So, for that scenario, lets look at two different configurations for Big House. The first is placing 20 Constantine with the largest maximum and the highest per minute. The second will be to place 30 Kizzy. Again, going into the game at the stated interval between 6 AM and 10 PM (16 hours). Let me just say that while 30 Kizzy would not be that hard, 20 of any 3 dresser Muppets would present a challenge to get the last two in place. I’ve thought it through and it is possible but you’d have to get lucky and would probably dismiss a lot of Muppets from the Digitizer to get there (unless you could by the last one with diamonds! For 20 Constantine, if I collect every: 15 minutes – I could gather 4,828,800 coins per day. 1.5 hours – I could gather 4,828,800 coins per day. 12 hours – I could gather 1,171,200 coins per day. For 30 Kizzy, if I collect every: 15 minutes – I could gather 4,963,200 coins per day. 1.5 hours – I could gather 4,963,200 coins per day. 12 hours – I could gather 1,171,200 coins per day. Before I get into comparing all these, if you are going to only be in twice a day, this is probably going to be the maximum you would see from this stage. Of course it would be different for each stage. Comparing these scenarios, there are some interesting things that show up. 1. For the twice a day gatherer, the difference in what I have from my current Big House and the optimal doesn’t show much difference. I think that the reason for that is that the Muppets are always going to their maximum. If you look at the normalized maximums (maximum coins divided by the number of rooms that Muppet takes on the stage), they are all very close except for the 1 room Muppets. That means that the average, no matter what the mix of Muppets on the stage, is going to produce just about the same result unless you have a lot of one room Muppets on your stage. I’ve never put more than one of each of those on a stage and typically remove some in favor of other Muppets where it makes sense for me. 2. I could actually improve my earning on this stage by going to all Kizzy rather than just 12 Kizzy mixed with other Muppets. I’m not so much after the ultimate earning that I want a stage with only multiples of one Muppet. I like to balance variety with earning. 3. How does Kizzy earn more than Constantine at the more frequent gathering rate but the same at twice a day? You can do 3 Kizzy for every 2 Constantine. Three Kizzy have a per minute of 456 and a maximum of 58560. Two Constantine have a per minute of 442 and a maximum of 58560. So, at the more frequent gather rate, since we are gathering before reaching the maximum, Kizzy is earning a little faster, even though Kizzy reaches the maximum sooner, it is still more than 1.5 hours. But, since at only twice a day they both reach their maximum and stop earning and the maximum is the same, they have the same earning at that frequency. Please take all the numbers with a little wiggle room in them. It is hard to ever collect at exactly 1.5 hours so I can’t truly confirm these and I’m also collecting off of all stages so I don’t break down my earning. But, when it is all added up, I am meeting or exceeding the expected coins per day just about every day unless something comes up. While I’m not placing any new Muppets, I still have Harv-e and the Digitizer working nonstop on all stages and dismissing those Muppets for coins so that takes me higher than the numbers in my charts.